Five Takeaways From The Fargo Pilot
1. Billy Bob Thornton is awesome: Thornton plays a malevolent genie of sorts, walking through Fargo’s frozen tundra ;leaving mayhem and destruction in his wake. Every moment
Thornton is on the screen is imminently viewable but the last scene he appears in is his most memorable. His character is stopped by a police officer and subverts a common trope in a delightful way.
2. Fargo is a weird mix of contrasts: The show struggles to gain its footing early on,which makes me thankful that FX gave the pilot extra time. Fargo is the guy at the circus spinning plates on a stick, and like the guy at the circus, there are times where things are shaky and it doesn’t look like he will pull it off.
The show juggles comedy and over the top violence. It’s a tightrope that Fargo walks well, I found myself laughing aloud several times when heinous acts of violence occurred.
3.Fantastic Casting: Besides Thornton, there’s Martin Freeman who plays an everyman loser named Lester Nygaard . Freeman plays every moment as straight as a razor, intensifying his comedic effect. Allison Tolman’s portrayal as a somewhat goofy but ambitious Sheriff's deputy is the heart of the show and true story driver. Tolman is a relative unknown but she won’t be for long, she plays her character with a vulnerability that makes it impossible not to care about her character.
4. Anti hero’s journey: This type of character arch has almost become cliche, the down on his luck loser, marginalized by society(especially his wife) finally reaches his breaking point and turns to a life of crime. Fargo lays it on a bit thick in this area, We are beaten over the head with just how anemic Lester Nygaard is. Another issue is, Nygaard’s motivation’s don’t feel authentic. Yes he’s crapped on by life, and his wife is a shrew but we weren’t given enough motivation to payoff a brutal stabbing. On the flip side, tropes are tropes for a reason, because they work.
5. Its true to the source material: No matter how well done any adaptation is, it will have
its critics, especially when the source material is as beloved as Fargo’s. The show doesn’t
try to mimic the movie so much as it stands alongside it. It nails the tone of a Coen
Brothers flick, while charting new ground at the same time.
